Studio scene comparison (RAW)

This is our standard studio scene comparison shot taken from exactly the same tripod position. Lighting: daylight simulation, >98% CRI. Crops are 100%. Ambient temperature was approximately 22°C (~72°F).

For a (more) level playing field for comparison we also shot our studio scene in RAW mode with each camera and converted it using Adobe Camera RAW. Because Adobe Camera RAW applies different levels of sharpening to different cameras (this confirmed) we use the following workflow for these conversions:

Load RAW file into Adobe Camera RAW (Auto mode disabled)

Set Sharpness to 0 (all other settings default)

Open file to Photoshop

Apply a Unsharp mask: 100%, Radius 0.6, Threshold 0

Save as a JPEG quality 11 for display and download.

Note: this page features our new interactive studio shot comparison widget.Click here to find out more.

Comments

Curious. I’ve noticed before that Pentax, not being one of your sponsors, gets consistently downgraded reviews compared to comparable Nikon products. So, the 5100 has ‘outstanding’ image quality, while that of the superlative Pentax K5 is merely ‘excellent’. Are you really claiming that the image quality of the Nikon is superior to a camera that uses the same sensor as (and even gets slightly more out of it than) the D7000?